CHARLES I. AND THE COMMONWEALTH
With the close of the reign of James I. the Tower ceased to be a royal
residence—the Stuart kings, in fact, never passing more than a night
or two in the old fortress prior to their coronation, after which they
only visited it on very rare occasions. James himself only occupied the
Tower-Palace on the eve of opening his first Parliament; and as the
plague had broken out in the city at the time of Charles the First’s
coronation, that king did not even stay the previous night in the
building, nor does he appear ever to have visited the fortress during
the whole of his stormy reign of four and twenty years.
A very remarkable man occupied a prison in the Tower early in Charles’s
reign. This was Sir John Eliot, “fiery Eliot” Carlyle calls him. He
was first of that noble band of patriots who defied Charles’s tyranny,
and had been sent to the Tower in the winter of 1624–25 for censuring
Buckingham during Charles’s second Parliament, but he remained there
only a short time. In the March of 1628, however, Eliot, with a
batch of independent members of the House of Commons—amongst whom
were Denzil Holles, Selden, Valentine, Coryton, and Heyman—was again
imprisoned in the Tower. Eliot had boldly declared that the “King’s
judges, Privy Council, Judges and learned Council had conspired to
trample under their feet the liberties of the subjects of the realm,
and the liberties of the House.” Denzil Holles and Valentine were the
two members who had kept the Speaker in his chair by main force;
the others were committed to prison for using language reflecting
on the King and his Ministers. For the following three months these
members of Parliament were kept in close confinement in the fortress,
books and all writing materials being strictly kept from them. In
May, Sir John Eliot was taken to Westminster, where an inquiry was
held but no judgment given. After his return to the Tower, however,
Eliot was allowed to write letters, and was also given “the liberty
of the Tower,” and permitted to see a few friends. In the month of
October Eliot and the others were taken to the chambers of the Lord
Chief-Justice, and thence to the Marshalsea Prison, a change which he
jokingly described as having “left their Palace in London for country
quarters at Southwark.” Then they were tried, and Eliot, being judged
the most culpable, was fined two thousand pounds, and ordered to be
imprisoned in the Tower during the King’s pleasure. As for the fine,
Eliot remarked that he “possessed two cloaks, two suits of clothes, two
pairs of boots, and a few books, and if they could pick two thousand
pounds out of that, much good might it do them.” The fearless member
never quitted the Tower again, for a galloping consumption carried
him off two years after he had written the above lines. There can be
no doubt that this consumption was not a little owing to the harsh
treatment he endured. In 1630 he wrote to his friend Knightley,
alluding to rumours of his being released. “Have no confidence in such
reports; sand was the best material on which they rested, and the many
fancies of the multitude; unless they pointed at that kind of libertie,
‘libertie of mynde.’ But other libertie I know not, having so little
interest in her masters that I expect no service from her.” His prison
was frequently changed, and many restraints were put upon him, for,
on the 26th of December, he writes to his old friend, the famous John
Hampden, that his lodgings have been moved. “I am now,” he says, “where
candle-light may be suffered, but scarce fire. None but my servants,
hardly my sonne, may have admittance to me; my friends I must desire
for their own sake to forbear coming to the Tower.” Poor Eliot was
dying fast in the year 1632, but his last letter to Hampden, dated the
22nd of March, is full of his old brave spirit, and the gentle humour
that distinguished this great and good man. The letter concludes thus:
“Great is the authority of princes, but greater much is theirs who both
command our persons and our will. What the success of their Government
will be must be referred to Him that is master of their power.” The
doctor had informed the authorities that any fresh air and exercise
would help Eliot to live, but all the air they gave him was a “smoky
room,” and all the exercise, a few steps on the platform of a wall.
On the 27th of November Eliot died, “not without a suspicion of foul
play,” wrote Ludlow some years afterwards.
[Illustration: _The Byward Tower_]
Eliot’s staunch friends, Pym and Hampden, moved in the House for a
committee “to examine after what manner Sir John Eliot came to his
death, his usage in the Tower, and to view the rooms and place where he
was imprisoned and where he died, and to report the same to the House,”
a motion which shows how matters had changed for the better since the
days of Elizabeth, none of whose Parliaments would have dared thus to
question the treatment of State prisoners.
The blame of his untimely death—for he was but forty-two—rests upon
those who let him die by inches in his prison as much as if they had
beheaded him on Tower Hill. John Eliot died a martyr in the cause of
constitutional liberty as opposed to monarchical autocracy. Eliot’s son
petitioned the King to be allowed to remove his father’s body to their
old Cornish home at St Germains, but the vindictive and narrow-minded
monarch, who would not even forgive Eliot after death had intervened,
refused the prayer, writing at the foot of the petition, “Lett Sir John
Eliot’s body be buried in the church of the parish where he died.” No
stone marks the spot where he is buried, and his dust mingles with
that of the illustrious dead in St Peter’s Chapel in the Tower, but his
name will be remembered as long as liberty is loved in his native land.
We now come to a period of quite another sort.
In Carlyle’s “Historical Sketches,” John Felton, the assassin of
Buckingham, is thus described:—“Short, swart figure, of military
taciturnity, of Rhadamanthian energy and gravity.... Passing along
Tower Hill one of these August days (in 1628) Lieutenant Felton sees a
sheath-knife on a stall there, value thirteen pence, of short, broad
blade, sharp trowel point.” We know the use Felton made of that Tower
Hill knife on his visit to Portsmouth, where Buckingham was then about
to set sail for his second expedition to La Rochelle; how he stabbed
the gay Duke to the heart, exclaiming, as he struck him: “God have
mercy on thy soul!” how he was promptly arrested, brought to London and
imprisoned in the Tower.
The reason, or reasons, for Felton killing Buckingham have never been
made clear. He appears to have been a soured religious fanatic, but
the crime was doubtless owing to some fancied injustice regarding his
promotion in the army; and it has been thought that it was merely an
act of private vengeance, rather than one of political significance.
But after his arrest a paper was found fastened in Felton’s hat,
with the following writing upon it:—“That man is cowardly, base,
and deserveth not the name of a gentleman or soldier, that is not
willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of his God, King, and his
countrie. Lett no man commend me for doing of it, but rather discommend
themselves as the cause of it, for if God hath not taken away our
hearts for our sins, he would not have gone so long unpunished.—Jno.
Felton.” A sentiment which goes to show that Felton assassinated
Buckingham with the fanatical idea of benefiting his country.
So hated was Buckingham by the people, that Felton passed into the
Tower amid blessings and prayers. He was placed in the prison lately
occupied by Sir John Eliot in the Bloody Tower, and before his death
made two requests—one, that he might be permitted to take the Holy
Communion, and the other that he might be executed with a halter round
his neck, ashes on his head, and sackcloth round his loins. On being
threatened with the rack in order to induce him to give the names of
his accomplices, Felton said to Lord Dorset that, in the first place,
he would not believe that it was the King’s wish that he should be
tortured, it being illegal; and, secondly, that if he were racked, he
would name Dorset, and none but him—a capital answer. When he was asked
why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he answered: “I
am sorry both that I have shed the blood of a man who is the image
of God, and taken away the life of so near a subject of the King.”
As a last favour, he begged that his right hand might be struck off
before he was hanged. He suffered at Tyburn, and his body was gibbeted
in chains at Portsmouth. “His dead body,” writes Evelyn, “is carried
down to Portsmouth, hangs high there. I hear it creak in the wind.” An
eye-witness describes Felton as showing much courage and calm during
his trial and at his death, and Philip, Earl of Exeter, who attended
the execution, declared that he had never seen such valour and piety,
“more temperately mixed,” as in Felton’s demeanour. This is surely one
of the strangest mysteries in our history.
Prisoners still continued to come to the Tower, and in 1631, Mervin,
Lord Audley, was executed on Tower Hill for a crime not of a political
nature. Six years later a very distinguished ecclesiastic, John
Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, was imprisoned for four years within the
Tower walls. Williams, who was a Privy Councillor, had repeated some
remarks made by the King, in which His Majesty had advocated greater
leniency in the treatment of the Puritans, and was accused of revealing
Charles’s private conversation, and being an enemy of Laud’s was very
hardly dealt with in consequence. He was deposed from his bishopric,
fined £10,000, and imprisoned in the Tower, where he caused some
surprise, if not scandal, by not attending the church services in the
fortress. However, after his release, Williams was reconciled to the
King, and in 1641 became Archbishop of York. He had been successively
Dean of Salisbury and Dean of Westminster, and had succeeded Bacon as
Lord Chancellor in 1621, just before he had been appointed to the See
of Lincoln. Williams certainly belonged to the Church Militant, and
during the Civil War defended Conway Castle most gallantly for the
royal cause. At the end of December 1641, he was back again in the
Tower, with ten other Bishops who had protested that, owing to their
being kept out of the House of Lords by the violence of the mob, all
Acts passed during their absence were illegal. The Peers arrested the
protesting Bishops on a charge of high treason; and on a very cold
and snowy December night they were all sent to the Tower, where they
remained until the May of 1642.
Lord Loudon, who had been sent by the Scottish Covenanters to Charles,
had a narrow escape of leaving his head on Tower Hill in 1639.
According to Clarendon, a letter was discovered of a treasonable
nature, signed by Loudon, addressed to Louis XIII. of France, and
Charles ordered Sir William Balfour, by virtue of a warrant signed
by the royal hand, to have the Scottish lord executed the following
morning. In this terrible dilemma Loudon bethought him of his friend,
the Marquis of Hamilton, and gave the Lieutenant a message for that
nobleman. Now it was one of the privileges of the Lieutenant of the
Tower that he could at any time, or in any place, claim an audience
with the sovereign. Hamilton persuaded Balfour to go with him to
Charles, but on arriving at Whitehall, they found that the King had
already retired for the night. Balfour, however, taking advantage
of his privilege, entered the room with Hamilton, and together they
besought Charles to re-consider his decision, pointing out to him that
Loudon was protected by his quality as Ambassador from the Scotch. The
King, as was his wont, was obdurate. “No,” he said; “the warrant must
be obeyed.” At length the Marquis, having begged in vain, left the
chamber, saying, “Well, then, if your Majesty be so determined, I’ll
go and get ready to ride post for Scotland to-morrow morning, for I
am sure before night the whole city will be in an uproar, and they’ll
come and pull your Majesty out of your palace. I’ll get as far as I
can, and declare to my countrymen that I had no hand in it.” On hearing
this, Charles called for the warrant and destroyed it. Loudon was soon
afterwards released (Oldnixon’s “History of the Stuarts”).
Now comes the story of the last days of one of Charles’s most noted
counsellors—last days that, as in the case of many before him, were
passed within the grim precincts of the Tower, and were the prelude
to execution. On the 11th of November 1640, the Earl of Strafford was
at Whitehall laying before Charles a scheme for accusing the heads of
the parliamentary party of holding a treasonable correspondence with
the Scotch army, then encamped in the North of England. Whilst he was
with the King the news reached him that Pym at that very moment was
impeaching him in the House of Commons on the charge of high treason.
Strafford at once made his way to the House, but was not allowed to
speak, and shortly afterwards heard his committal made out for the
Tower. At the same time Archbishop Laud was arrested at Lambeth Palace,
and carried off to the great State prison. “As I went to my barge,”
Laud writes in his diary, “hundreds of my poor neighbours stood there
and prayed for my safety and return to my home.” But neither he nor
Strafford were ever to return to their homes. Perhaps Strafford’s life
might have been saved had it not been for the King’s action, for when
it became known that Charles had plotted with the hope of inducing
the Scottish army to march on London, seize the Tower and liberate
Strafford, the great Earl was practically doomed. The city rose as one
man, a huge mob surging round the Houses of Parliament and the Palace
of Whitehall, shouting “Justice.”
For fifteen days Strafford faced his accusers and judges at Westminster
Hall, his defence being a splendid piece of oratory. He proved that on
the ground of high treason his judgment would not count, and his judges
were compelled to introduce an Act of Attainder in order to convict
him; but for the next six months he was kept in the Tower, uncertain
as to his ultimate fate until the 12th of May 1641, when the Bill of
Attainder was passed by the Lords.[3]
Charles had sworn to Strafford that not a single hair of his head
should be injured; but on the Earl writing to him and offering his life
as the only means of healing the troubles of the country, the King
yielded, and deserting his minister, gave his assent to the execution,
and signed the warrant.
On the following morning Strafford was led out to die. There is no more
dramatic episode in the great struggle between Charles and his people
than that when Strafford, amidst his guards, passed beneath the gateway
of the Bloody Tower, where, from an upper window, his old friend,
Archbishop Laud, gave him his blessing. The Archbishop, overcome, sank
back fainting into the arms of his attendants. “I hope,” he is reported
to have said, “by God’s assistance and through mine own innocency that
when I come to my own execution, I shall shew the world how much more
sensible I am to my Lord Strafford’s loss than I am to my own.”
Knowing how bitterly Strafford was hated by the people, the Lieutenant
of the Tower invited him to drive to Tower Hill in his coach, fearing
he might be torn to pieces if he went on foot. Strafford, however,
declined the offer, saying, “No, Mr Lieutenant, I dare look death
in the face, and I trust the people too.” With the Earl were the
Archbishop of Armagh (Ussher), Lord Cleveland, and his brother, Sir
George Wentworth. On reaching the scaffold Strafford made a short
speech, followed by a long prayer, and giving his final messages for
his wife and children to his brother, said: “One stroke more will make
my wife husbandless, my dear children fatherless, my poor servants
masterless, and will separate me from my dear brother and all my
friends; but let God be to you and to them all in all.” He then removed
his doublet, and said, “I thank God that I am no more afraid of death,
but as cheerfully put off my doublet at this time as ever I did when I
went to bed.” Then placing a white cap upon his head, and thrusting his
long hair beneath it, he knelt down at the block, the Archbishop also
kneeling on one side and a clergyman upon the other, the Archbishop
clasping Strafford’s hands in both his own. After they had left him
Strafford gave the sign for the executioner to strike by thrusting out
both his hands, and at one blow, “the wisest head in England,” as John
Evelyn, who was present, says, “was severed from his body.” On that
night London blazed with bonfires, and the people rejoiced as if in
celebration of some great victory.
The great Earl’s mistake was in serving and trusting such a king as
Charles. Later on it transpired that Charles had a plan of removing
Strafford from the Tower by throwing a hundred men into the fortress,
thus relieving the Earl, and keeping possession of the Tower as a check
upon the city. In pursuance of this plan, on the 2nd May 1641, Captain
Billingsby with a force of one hundred men presented himself at the
gates of the Tower, but Sir William Balfour refused to admit them, and
the King’s scheme for taking the fortress fell to the ground.
[Illustration: THE TRUE MANER OF THE EXECUTION OF THOMAS EARLE OF
STRAFFORD LORD Lieutenant of Ireland vpon Tower hill the 12ᵗʰ of May
1641
A. Doctor Vsher Lord Primate of Ireland
B. the Sherifes of London
C. the Earle of Strafford
D. his kindred and Friends
_Execution of the Earl of Strafford, May 12ᵗʰ. 1641._]
/
The first beginnings of a Tower regiment, according to Mr J. H. Round,
was the appointment of two hundred men as Tower Guards in 1640. In
November of the same year Charles promised to remove this garrison,
but he did not do so until the city offered to lend him £25,000, on
the condition that these troops should be taken away, as well as the
ordnance from the White Tower, which was a perpetual menace to the
safety of the city. Aersen, the Dutch Ambassador, writing to his
Government about this time, says, “le dessein semble aller sur le
tour.” Still the King would not withdraw the soldiers or the cannon,
and then the House of Lords expostulated with him, but Charles excused
his breach of faith by saying that his object was merely to insure the
safety of the stores and ammunition in the fortress.
After his plot to seize the Tower had been made public, the train bands
belonging to the Tower Hamlets occupied and garrisoned the fortress.
These train bands, as well as those of Southwark and Westminster, were
distinct from the city train bands. On the 3rd of January 1642, the
King made another attempt to garrison the Tower with his own troops,
which also proved a failure. On this occasion Sir John Byron entered
the fortress with a detachment of gunners and disarmed the men of
the Tower Hamlets, but the city train bands came to the rescue, and
Byron, with his gunners, had to beat a retreat. When, in 1642, the
Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Conyers, resigned his charge, the
Parliament conferred the Lieutenancy upon the Lord Mayor of London.
Later, in 1647, when the city had taken the side of the Parliament
against the King, Fairfax was appointed Constable; the Constables had
succeeded each other according to the chances which brought the King
or the Parliament to the top, thus Lord Cottrington had been replaced
by Sir William Balfour, and he in his turn had given room to Sir
Thomas Lumsford, a “soldier of fortune,” writes Ludlow of him in his
“Memoirs,” “fit for any wicked design.” Lumsford, so uncomplimentarily
referred to by Ludlow, was supposed to be willing to act according to
the King’s good pleasure, and succeeded in making himself so unpopular
with the Londoners, that they petitioned the House of Lords to beg the
King to place the custody of the Tower in other hands, the Lord Mayor
saying he could not undertake to prevent the apprentices from rising
were Lumsford allowed to remain in office; so Charles unwillingly gave
the keys of the fortress to the care of Sir John Byron. Byron, in his
turn, was succeeded by Sir John Conyers, who had distinguished himself
in the Scottish wars and had been Governor of Berwick; and after
Conyers followed Lord Mayor Pennington,[4] “in order,” as Clarendon
writes, “that the citizens might see that they were trusted to hold
their own reins and had a jurisdiction committed to them which had
always checked their own.” From 1643 to 1647 the Tower remained in
the hands of the Parliament. In the latter year the army obtained the
mastery, and Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Commander-in-Chief, became its
Constable, under him being Colonel Tichbourne as Lieutenant of the
fortress. Shortly after the King’s execution, however, Fairfax resigned
his post of Constable, none other than Cromwell, himself, stepping into
the vacant place.
But we must return to Archbishop Laud, who for four years was a
prisoner in the Bloody Tower in the prison chamber over the gateway of
that gloomy building.
In his diary, the Archbishop has left a minute account of a domiciliary
visit paid him by William Prynne in 1643. The Archbishop’s trial
being determined on by the House of Lords, Prynne was commissioned
by the Peers to obtain Laud’s private papers. “Mr Prynne,” writes
the Archbishop, “came into the Tower with other searchers as soon
as the gates were open. Other men went to other prisoners; he made
haste to my lodging, commanded the warder to open my doors, left two
musketeer centinels below, that no man might go in or out, and one
at the stairhead. With three others, which had their muskets already
cocked, he came into my chamber, and found me in bed, as my servants
were in theirs. I presently thought on my blessed Saviour when Judas
led in the swords and staves about him.”—This surely is rather a bold
comparison for an Archbishop to make?—“Mr Prynne, seeing me safe in
bed, falls first to my pockets to rifle them; and by that time my
two servants came running in half ready. I demanded the sight of his
warrant; he shewed it to me, and therein was expressed that he should
search my pockets. The warrant came from the close committee, and the
hands that were to it were these: E. Manchester, W. Saye and Seale,
Wharton, H. Vane, Gilbert Gerard, and John Pym. Did they remember when
they gave their warrant how odious it was to Parliament, and some of
themselves, to have the pockets of men searched? When my pockets had
been sufficiently ransacked, I rose and got my clothes about me, and
so, half ready, with my gown about my shoulders, he held me in the
search till half-past nine of the clock in the morning. He took from me
twenty and one bundles of papers which I had prepared for my defence;
two Letters which came to me from his gracious Majesty, about Chartham
and my other benefices; the Scottish service books or diary, containing
all the occurrences of my life, and my book of private devotions, both
which last were written through with my own hand. Nor could I get him
to leave this last, but he must needs see what passed between God
and me, a thing, I think, scarce offered to any Christian. The last
place that he rifled was my trunk, which stood by my bedside. In that
he found nothing, but about forty pounds in money, for my necessary
expenses, which he meddled not with, and a bundle of some gloves. This
bundle he was so careful to open, so that he caused each glove to be
looked into. Upon this I tendered him one pair of gloves, which he
refusing, I told him he might take them, and fear no bribe, for he had
already done me all the mischief he could, and I asked no favour of
him, so he thanked me, took the gloves, bound up my papers, left two
centinels at my door, and went his way.”—(From “Troubles and Trials of
Archbishop Laud.”)
Prynne, whose ears Laud had been the means of cutting off some
half-dozen years before, must have enjoyed this visit to his old foe.
On the 10th of March 1643, the Archbishop was brought to his trial in
Westminster Hall, but amongst all the charges brought against him none
could be considered as proving him guilty of high treason. Serjeant
Wild was obliged to admit this, but said that when all the Archbishop’s
transgressions of the law were put together they made “many grand
treasons.” To this Laud’s counsel made answer, “I crave you mercy, good
Mr Serjeant, I never understood before this that two hundred couple of
black rabbits made a black horse.”—(In Archbishop Tennison’s MSS. in
Lambeth Library. Quoted by Bayley.)
Laud’s trial lasted for twenty days, the chief accusation brought
against him being that he had “attempted to subvert religion and the
fundamental laws of the realm.” The outcome of the trial was that Laud
was beheaded on Tower Hill on 10th of January 1644. Laud was a strange
compound of bigotry and intolerance, of courage and of devotion to what
he considered to be the true Church, and of which he seemed to regard
himself as a kind of Anglican Pope. His life and character are enigmas
to those who study them, and his death became him far better than his
life had done.
[Illustration: WILLIAM LAUD
_Aerts Bisschop van Cantelbury, binnen London Onthalft den 10
January, Anno 1645_
_Arnt Pieters Excudit_]
Carlyle, in a delightful passage in his posthumously published
“Historical Studies,” writes: “Future ages, if they do not, as is
likelier, totally forget ‘W. Cant,’ will range him under the category
of Incredibilities. Not again in the dead strata which lie under men’s
feet, will such a fossil be dug up. This wonderful wonder of wonders,
were it not even this, a zealous Chief Priest, at once persecutor and
martyr, who has no discernible religion of his own?” “No one,” said
Laud, when told of the day on which he was to die, “no one can be
more ready to send me out of life than I am to go.” Indeed, no one
could have left life in a calmer or more tranquil manner than did
the Archbishop. It must be a great support to have a sublime opinion
of oneself, and if ever man had a sublime opinion of himself it was
Laud. The comparison he made in his diary, and which I have already
quoted, between his Saviour and himself—between Prynne-Judas and
Laud-Christ—proves the ineffable self-conceit of the prelate.
The fact that he himself was notoriously indifferent, if not callous,
to the sufferings of others, has destroyed all the sympathy that might
have been felt for this strange character in his fall and tribulations.
For a mere difference of opinion Laud would order ears to be lopped
off, noses slit, and brows and cheeks to be branded with red-hot iron.
His best and most enduring monument is the addition he made to St
John’s College at Oxford, of which he was at one time the president,
and in whose chapel his remains were re-interred, after resting for
a time in the Church of All Hallows, Barking, and in the library of
which his spectre is said to be seen occasionally gliding on moonlight
nights, between the old bookshelves.
After the month of August 1642, when Charles had unfurled his standard
at Nottingham, the Tower, although nominally still in the King’s
possession, was in reality held by the Parliament; and its prisoners
were those who were opposed to the representatives of the people.
Among these was Sir Ralph Hopton, who had protested against a violent
address made by the Parliament against Charles, Sir Ralph having
declared that his fellow-members “seemed to ground an opinion of the
King’s apostacy upon less evidence than would serve to hang a fellow
for stealing a horse.” This remark brought him to the Tower, where
he was soon joined by another member of Parliament, Trelawney (or
Trelauney), who had informed the House of Commons that they could not
legally appoint a guard of troops for themselves without the King’s
assent, under pain of high treason (Clarendon).
Sir Ralph, afterwards Lord Hopton of Stratton, distinguished himself
later in the war in the West of England, where he had much success,
and with the help of Sir Beville Grenville, gained a signal victory
over the Parliamentarians at Stamford Hill, near Stratton, in Cornwall.
Fairfax, however, ultimately proved too strong for him, and finally
Hopton left England, dying at Bruges in 1652.
Besides these, Sir Thomas Bedingfield and Sir James Gardner were
committed to the Tower by the House of Lords, “for refusing to be of
the counsel of the Attorney-General,” whilst the Earl of Bristol and
Judge Mallet followed them to the fortress, “merely for having seen
the Kentish petition.” This petition was drawn up by the principal
inhabitants of that county, praying, “that the militia might not
otherwise be exercised in that county than the known law permitted, and
that the Book of Common Prayer, established by law, might be observed.”
Lord Bristol soon obtained his liberty, but Mallet was kept a prisoner
for two years on the charge of being “a fomentor and protector of
malignant factions against the Parliament” (Clarendon).
In the same year, Sir Richard Gurney, Lord Mayor of London, was sent
to the Tower on the charge of having caused the King’s proclamation
against the militia, and for suppressing petitions to Parliament, to be
published in the city. Sir Richard was dismissed from his mayoralty,
and imprisoned during the pleasure of the House. Another Lord Mayor,
loyal to the cause of the King, Sir Abraham Reynoldson, was, six years
later, also a prisoner in the Tower; but his incarceration lasted only
two months, whilst Gurney, it seems, remained for several years in the
fortress. The Parliament meted out heavy punishment for “opinions,”
Lord Montagu of Boughton, the Earl of Berkshire, and some Norfolk
squires, being likewise sent to the Tower on a charge of favouring the
King’s side, and of being hostile to the Parliament. In 1643 Justice
Berkeley was imprisoned by order of the Lords on a charge of high
treason, and also a Mr Montagu, a “messenger” from the French Court to
the King.
At this time whole batches of Cavaliers began to be frequently brought
to the Tower. Of these, Sir William Moreton, who was captured at the
fall of Sudeley Castle, of which he was the governor, remained a
prisoner until the Restoration, when he was made a judge. Another was
Daniel O’Neale, who had greatly distinguished himself on the royal
side in the Scottish war, and later in England. He was committed to
the Tower on the invariable charge of high treason, but, like Lord
Nithsdale, about half-a-century later, he managed to break his prison
in female attire, and succeeded in reaching Holland, whence he returned
to serve under Rupert as a lieutenant-colonel in the Prince’s cavalry.
According to Clarendon, O’Neale became a celebrated adept in court
intrigue in the time of Charles II.
In this year (1643), Sir John Conyers was in command of the fortress,
having received the charge from the Parliament in the hope that he
would be gained over to that side. On being asked to take the command
of the Parliamentary army, Conyers, however, declined, his refusal
causing so much annoyance to the leaders of that party that he thought
it more prudent to resign his charge of the Tower, being, as Clarendon
puts it, too conscientious, “to keep His Majesty’s only fort which he
could not apply to his services.” His place, as has already been said,
was given to Sir Isaac Pennington, Lord Mayor of London.
In 1644, Sir John Hotham, and his son, Captain Hotham, who had
been imprisoned in the Tower in the preceding summer on the charge
of intending to surrender the town of Hull to the King, were both
beheaded on Tower Hill. Hotham may be described as the Bazaine of the
Parliament. The town of Hull was the greatest magazine of arms and
ammunition in England. Charles had in vain summoned Hotham, who was the
Governor for the Parliament, to surrender the town, and on his refusal
had declared him a traitor. There is little doubt that both Hotham and
his son were Royalists at heart, and both were convicted of having
entered into a correspondence with the King’s party in order to come to
terms for the surrender of the town and arsenal to the Royalist forces.
Another governor—Sir Alexander Carew, who held Plymouth for the
Parliament—was beheaded in the same month as the Hothams for a like
“intention.” Carew is said to have been decapitated with the same axe
with which Strafford was killed, and it was reported that at the time
of Strafford’s trial, Carew had said that sooner than not vote for
the Earl’s death, he would be ready to be the next man to suffer on
the same scaffold, and with the same axe: a wish which was literally
fulfilled. (Dugdale’s “Short View of the Late Troubles.”)
By one of those strange vagaries of fortune which are the
characteristic of the history of this period, and in which the Tower
played its accustomed part of imprisonment, George Monk, the future
Duke of Albemarle, and one of the makers of our history, was imprisoned
in the Tower for three years after his capture by Fairfax at the siege
of Nantwich. He was a colonel at the time, and only regained his
freedom by consenting to take the command of the Parliamentary forces
sent to Ireland (Ludlow’s Memoirs).
Two of Monk’s fellow-prisoners, Lord Macquire and Colonel MacMahon,
who had both been fighting on the Royalist side in Ireland, made a
desperate attempt to escape from the Tower in this same year (1644).
They succeeded in sawing through their prison door and lowered
themselves by a rope, which they had been enabled to find through
directions written on a slip of paper that had been placed in a loaf
of bread, sent to them by some of their friends. They got down into
the moat, across which they swam, but were taken on the other side and
hanged at Tyburn in February 1645, although Macquire pleaded that, as
an Irish peer, he had the right of dying by the axe and not by the
halter. For allowing the escape of these officers from their prison
chamber the Lieutenant of the Tower was fined heavily.
That splendid cavalier, “Old Loyalty,” as he was proudly called,
John Paulett, Marquis of Worcester, who had defended Baring House so
long and so well, came a prisoner into the Tower in this same year,
accompanied by Sir Robert Peake, who had aided him in the defence of
his home, and who had also been taken prisoner after the storming of
the place. They were followed by Sir John Strangways, who had been
taken at the siege of Cardiff. In 1647 Sir John Maynard, Serjeant
Glynn, the Recorder of London, and the Lord Mayor, Sir John Gayre,
with some of his aldermen and sheriffs, were in the Tower, and amongst
the Royalists who were brought to the fortress as Charles’s fate was
closing over him, were the Earl of Cleveland, Judge Jenkins, Sir Lewis
Davies, and Sir John Stowell.
At the time of the King’s death on the scaffold in front of the
Banqueting House at Whitehall, many of his most devoted adherents were
close prisoners in the Tower, among them being James, Duke of Hamilton,
one of Charles’s closest friends, who had made a rash attempt to invade
England in 1648, and, meeting Cromwell, was defeated and made prisoner
at Uttoxeter. For fellows in misfortune the Duke had George Goring,
Earl of Norwich, Lord Capel, and the Earl of Holland—taken after the
surrender of Colchester Castle—and Sir John Owen. The imprisonment of
captured Royalists by the Parliament was but too often the prelude to
their execution, but before the Duke and Lord Holland were beheaded,
much interest was made to save them—more particularly Lord Holland; but
Cromwell was obdurate, and they were both put to death in New Palace
Yard. Lord Capel had succeeded in getting out of his prison. There
is an interesting account of his escape and recapture given by Lord
Clarendon in his “History,” and, although lengthy, may be quoted here
as throwing an interesting light upon those times of revolution. “The
Lord Capel, shortly after he was brought prisoner to the Tower from
Windsor Castle, had, by a wonderful adventure, having a cord and all
things necessary conveyed to him, let himself down out of the window
of his chamber in the night, over the wall of the Tower, and had been
directed through what part of the ditch he might be best able to wade.
Whether he found the right place, or whether there was no safer place,
he found the water and the mud so deep, that if he had not been by the
head taller than other men, he must have perished, since the water
came up to his chin. The way was so long to the other side, and the
fatigue of drawing himself out of so much mud so intolerable, that his
spirits were near spent, and he was once ready to call out for help,
as thinking it better to be carried back to the prison, than to be
found in such a place, from whence he could not extricate himself, and
where he was ready to expire. But it pleased God that he got at last
to the other side, where his friends expected him, and carried him to
a chamber in the Temple, where he remained two or three nights secure
from any discovery, notwithstanding the diligence that could not be
used to recover a man they designed to use no better. After two or
three days a friend whom he trusted much, and who had deserved to be
trusted, conceiving he might be more secure in a place to which there
was less resort, and where there were so many harboured who were every
day sought after, had provided a lodging for him in a private house in
Lambeth Marsh; and calling upon him in an evening when it was dark, to
go thither, they chose rather to take a boat they found ready at the
Temple Stairs, than to trust one of that people with their secret, and
it was so late that there was only one boat left there. In that the
Lord Capel (as well disguised as he thought necessary) and his friend
put themselves, and bid the waterman to row them to Lambeth. Whether,
in their passage thither, the other gentleman called him ‘my lord,’
as was confidently repeated, or whether the waterman had any jealousy
by observing what he thought was a disguise, when they were landed,
the wicked waterman undiscerned followed them, till he saw into what
house they went; and then went to an officer and demanded: ‘What he
would give him to bring him to the place where Lord Capel lay?’ And the
officer promising to give him ten pounds, he led him presently to the
house, where that excellent person was seized upon, and the next day
carried to the Tower.”
Lord Capel was after this sentenced to be hanged, but this was commuted
to his being beheaded, the sentence being carried out in front of
Westminster Hall on the 9th March 1649. Clarendon writes of him as
being, “the noblest champion his party possessed; a man in whom the
malice of his enemies could discover very few faults, and whom his
friends could not wish better accomplished.” Arthur Capel had been
created Baron Capel of Hadham in Hertfordshire by Charles I., and his
son, Arthur, was created Earl of Essex by Charles II., coming, as we
shall see, to a tragic end in the Tower in that monarch’s reign.
Sir John Owen, that gallant Welsh knight, who had fought long and
valiantly for the Royal cause, was taken prisoner at the engagement
near Llandegas, and was imprisoned with the Duke of Hamilton and his
fellow-Cavaliers at Windsor Castle before going to the Tower. At his
trial Owen told his judges “that he was a plain gentleman of Wales,
who had been taught to obey the King; that he had served him honestly
during the war, and finding that many honest men endeavoured to raise
forces whereby he might get out of prison, he did the like.” When he
was condemned to be beheaded, he made his judges a low bow and said:
“It was a great honour to a poor gentleman of Wales to lose his head
with such noble lords; for, by God,” he added, “he was afraid they
would have hanged him.” But the gallant old Cavalier did not lose his
head, for Ireton stood up in the House and said that although the noble
lords who had been condemned to death had many advocates, plain Sir
John Owen had not one to speak for him. Ireton interceded so well, that
Sir John was pardoned, and after a few months’ imprisonment in the
Tower, was released. He went back to his beloved country, where he died
in 1666, and rests in the church of Penmorven, in his native county of
Carnarvonshire.
The execution of the other Cavaliers caused much indignation, and,
as was the fashion of the times, some pamphlets were written on the
subject against those in power, Colonel John Lilburne being the most
prominent of the pamphleteers. He, with three other writers, Walwayn,
Prince, and Overton, were sent to the Tower by order of the Parliament
for writing against its authority. Lilburne was banished the country,
the others were liberated. The Colonel, who was known as “Freeborn
John,” was a born pamphleteer, and no amount of prisons or pillories
stopped his output of what was certainly seditious matter. There is a
strong resemblance between “Freeborn John” and the French pamphleteer,
Rochefort, of our own time, for whatever Government was in power he
opposed it by his writings. In later life he became a Quaker, because
he was determined to enjoy what he considered “Christian Liberty.”
The Parliament met with considerable opposition from the Lord Mayor of
the city. In 1648 Lord Mayor Sir Abraham Reynardson was kept prisoner
in the Tower for two months, because he refused to publish in the city
the Ordinance of the House of Commons, abolishing the title of King.
Sir Abraham was one of the city worthies. He had been Master of the
Merchant Taylors Company in 1640–41, and had filled the highest civic
post in the city for six months prior to his imprisonment, and had
valiantly resisted the “turbulent disorders,” and the tyranny of the
Rump Parliament, which had tried in vain to force the Corporation of
London to follow its commands. Sir Abraham was not only imprisoned,
but was also fined £2000, and degraded from the office of Lord Mayor.
Reynardson’s generosity was great, and he is reported to have spent
£20,000 whilst he was Lord Mayor, not inclusive of the heavy fine. But
his loyalty to the Crown was unshaken, and he most willingly suffered
both loss of office and fortune in the Royalist cause. His portrait,
recently acquired by the Company of Merchant Taylors, is one of the
most interesting features of their splendid hall. Sir Abraham was
re-elected to the Lord Mayoralty on the return of Charles II. (see
C. M. Clode’s “Memoirs of Sir A. Reynardson”). The list of Royalist
prisoners gained additions almost every month. At this time an agent
of the young King’s, named Penruddock, was in the Tower with Sir John
Gell, Colonel Eusebius Andrews, and Captains Benson and Ashley. Colonel
Andrews, an old Royalist, was beheaded on Tower Hill; Gell, who was a
Parliamentary General, and who left some interesting memoirs of the
Civil War, was released after an imprisonment of two years. Benson was
hanged at Tyburn, and Ashley was liberated. All these were suspected
of plotting against the Parliament, and to them may be added Lords
Beauchamp, Bellasis, and Chandos, committed to the Tower by the Council
of State, “upon the suspicion of designing new troubles.” Lord Howard
of Escrick and a minister named Love were in the Tower at the same
period—the former, who was a member of Parliament, being imprisoned
on a charge of bribery whilst contesting the city of Carlisle; he
was dismissed the House and fined £10,000. The minister, Christopher
Love, had been a preacher at St Anne’s, Aldersgate, and St Lawrence’s,
Jewry, and was the author of many theological works. After the death
of Charles the First he became as violent a Royalist as he had been
a republican, and was found to be in correspondence with Charles the
Second. His pardon was eagerly begged by many London parishes, and by
no less than fifty-four of the clergy, but all they could get was a
respite for a month, and Love was beheaded in July 1651. His execution
caused much stir, as is proved by the fact that a Dutch allegorical
engraving was made of the scene, an engraving which, after those of the
executions of Strafford and Laud, is the earliest representation of an
execution on Tower Hill in existence. Lord Clarendon writes that “when
Love was on the scaffold he appeared with a marvellous undauntedness.”
In the same year, after the Battle of Worcester, the Tower was filled
with the captured Royalists from that disastrous fight. With these came
the Earls of Lauderdale, Kelly, and Rothes, General Massey and General
Middleton, the earls being soon removed to Windsor Castle, where they
remained prisoners until the Restoration. The two generals were enabled
to escape from the Tower, and joined Charles in Paris, “to the grief
and vexation of the very soul of Cromwell,” writes Clarendon. These
constant escapes from the Tower during the power of the Parliament and
the Commonwealth would seem to point to great laxity in its protection,
or to sympathy on the part of its guardians with the prisoners.
In the September of the following year the famous Edward Somerset,
Marquis of Worcester, and Earl of Glamorgan, was a prisoner of
the Commonwealth in the Tower. It was he who, with much show of
probability, is supposed to have come within reasonable distance of
inventing the steam-engine. He published in 1665 a book with a long
title, which may be abbreviated into “A Century of Invention,” which
Horace Walpole unkindly called “an amazing piece of folly.” Worcester
died in 1667, and the model of his steam-engine is supposed to have
been buried with him.
During the closing years of the Protectorate most of the State
prisoners in the Tower were those implicated in schemes for
assassinating Cromwell. One of these schemes, in 1654, brought Lord
Oxford, Sir Richard Willis, Sir Gilbert Gerrard, and his brother, John
Gerrard, with other Cavaliers, to the fortress, charged with belonging
to a set of conspirators who aimed at taking the Protector’s life. It
was proved that they had met at a tavern where it was proposed to kill
Cromwell, seize the Tower, and proclaim Prince Charles king. One of
the conspirators, named Fox, turned what would now be called king’s
evidence, with the result that two of his fellow-conspirators were
executed—Vowel, who was hanged at Charing Cross, and John Gerrard, who
was beheaded on Tower Hill.
In the following year Cromwell made a raid among the officers of the
Cavalier party, many of whom were seized and cashiered, Major-General
Overton being sent to the Tower. Two other generals came there to bear
him company in the same year, Generals Penn and Venables. They had
made a disastrously unsuccessful expedition to the West Indies, which
so exasperated Cromwell that on their return he ordered both of them
to be imprisoned. A year later the Lieutenant of the Tower was ordered
to release “one that goes by the name of Lucy Barlow, who for some
time hath been a prisoner in the Tower of London. She passeth under
the character of Charles Stuart’s wife; and hath a young son whom she
openly declareth to be his; and it is generally believed; the boy being
very like him; and both the mother and child provided for by him”
(“Mercuris Politicus,” 1656). This Lucy Barlow was better known later
on as Lucy Walters, and her son, who was then, and for some time to
come, known by the name of James Crofts, became Duke of Monmouth.
Clarendon describes at some length the strange story of the death in
the Tower, in 1657, of Miles Syndercombe, once an intimate friend of
Cromwell’s, but who for some unknown reason became involved in one
of the many plots for assassinating the Protector. Syndercombe was
sentenced to death, and it being expected that an attempt at his rescue
might take place, he was most carefully guarded in his prison. On the
morning of the day fixed for the execution, however, Syndercombe was
found dead in his bed, but nevertheless the corpse was dragged at a
horse’s tail to the place of execution, a stake being driven through it
after it was buried: Cromwell’s enemies accused him of having caused
his former friend to be poisoned.
Cromwell, who, with all his natural courage lived in constant terror
of assassination, in 1658 ordered all Royalists to live twenty
miles away from London, and sent Colonel Russell, Sir William
Compton, and Sir William Clayton, together with Henry Mordaunt, Lord
Peterborough’s brother, to the Tower. Mordaunt had been in the young
King’s employment, and, with a Dr Hewet, was put upon his trial for
conspiracy. Mordaunt was acquitted, but Hewet was found guilty, and
beheaded on Tower Hill. Another eminent Royalist, Sir Henry Slingsby, a
great Yorkshire magnate who had fought for Charles, was also beheaded
in the same year.
During the short interval that elapsed between the death of Cromwell
in September 1658 and the return of Charles II. in May 1660, the Tower
contained many important prisoners. Among them were Lady Mary Howard,
the daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, and another lady, a Mrs Sumner,
both of whom appear to have been mixed up in Mordaunt’s conspiracy
against Cromwell, as well as a Mr Ernestus Byron and a Mr Harlow
for the same cause. Other Royalists then in the fortress were Lord
Falkland, Lord Delaware, the Earl of Chesterfield, Lords Falconbridge,
Bellasis, Charles Howard, and Castleton, who had all taken part in a
Royalist rising in Cheshire under the leadership of Sir George Booth.
None of these, however, suffered more than a short imprisonment.
While the faction of the Parliament was making a desperate stand
against the military party in the government of the country, an
attempt was made by the former to seize the Tower. “The Lieutenant,
Colonel Fitz, had consented that Colonel Okey, with 300 men, should
be dispersed in the vicinity prepared for the enterprise, promising
that on a certain day he would cause the gates to be opened at an
early hour for the passage of the Colonel’s carriage, at which time
Colonel Okey with his men, embracing the opportunity, might seize the
guards and make themselves masters of the place. This plot, however,
was discovered, and on the night before its intended execution Colonel
Desborough being despatched from the Army, with a body of horse,
changed the guards, seized the Lieutenant, and placed a fresh garrison
in the Tower under the command of Colonel Miller” (Ludlow’s “Memoirs”).
Shortly after this episode, and during a disturbance amongst the
soldiers there, Lenthal, the Speaker of the House of Commons, proceeded
to the Tower, and removing the Lieutenant, who had been appointed by
the Committee of Safety, conferred the government of the fortress upon
Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. But when General Monk declared for the King,
that officer seized the fortress in the name of his royal master,
released many of the prisoners, and placed in it a garrison commanded
by Major Nicholson.
It was now the turn of the Royalists, and in the month of March 1660,
Sir Arthur Hazelrigge and Colonel John Lambert were placed in the Tower
because they had opposed Monk’s design for the restoration of the
King, an event which showed the other members of the Committee in which
direction the wind was blowing, and they made an attempt to secure
the Tower by victualling the fortress, with the intention of standing
a siege if it were necessary. Ludlow proposed that a force of two
thousand men should join Colonel Morley’s regiment in the Tower, that
the building itself should be stored with provisions for six months,
and that two thousand sailors should also be placed within its walls as
an additional security for its defence. This scheme, however, came to
nothing.
Samuel Pepys has given a description of how Lambert escaped from his
prison in the Tower, “The manner of the escape of John Lambert out
of the Tower, as related by Rugge:—That about eight of the clock at
night he escaped by a rope tied fast to his window, by which he slid
down, and in each hand he had a handkerchief; and six men were ready
to receive him, who had a barge to hasten him away. She who made the
bed, being privy to his escape, that night, to blind the warder when
he came to lock the chamber door, went to bed, and possessed Colonel
Lambert’s place and put on his night-cap. So, when the said warder came
to lock the door according to his usual manner, he found the curtains
drawn, and conceiving it to be Colonel Lambert, he said, ‘Good-night,
my lord.’ To which a seeming voice replied, and prevented all further
jealousies. The next morning, on coming to unlock the door, and espying
her face, he cried out, ‘In the name of God, Joan, what makes you here?
Where is my Lord Lambert?’ She said, ‘He is gone; but I cannot tell
whither.’ Whereupon he caused her to rise and carried her before the
officer in the Tower, and (she) was committed to custody. Some said
that a lady knit for him a garter of silk, by which he was conveyed
down, and that she received £100 for her pains.”
Lambert was, however, retaken by Colonel Ingoldsby in Warwickshire,
together with some other Roundhead officers who had joined him, and
he was again placed in the Tower. At the Restoration he was banished
to Guernsey, where he remained a prisoner until his death in 1683.
Lambert had a high military reputation amongst the Roundheads, and had
contributed greatly to the victory at Naseby, as well as defeating the
Royalists both in Scotland and in the Midlands: his fame was such that
Cromwell was supposed to have been somewhat jealous of his successes.
[Illustration: _Vaulting in the Cradle Tower_]